tying up tomatoes

[inthewinecountry]

I am new here and have read all the suggestions as to support and trimming the plants. I did learn something new and that is about the growing conditions other people face, never thought about it. For instance the humidity people have to deal with in certain parts of the country. I grow my tomatoes and other veggies in the rusty crw, works for me. My wife doesn't like it, thinks it looks funny seeing all these cages sticking up in garden. The storage is an issue of course but they are cheap! One suggestion I have that I saw used at the Kendal Jackson winery gardens is they use steel T-posts anchored at the end of a row and additional posts every 6ft to 8ft then they take sisal twine and double wrap it between the posts. As the tomatoes grow they position the vines between the two strings and add more strings the higher they grow. Of course you have to put up with a errant branch here and there but storage is no problem. If you want to taste several hundred varieties at a time go to Kendal Jacksons tomato festival in Sept. used to to go until it became a "event" and they raised the admission.
Charles

[desertlzbn]

I have to do the opposite because it is so dry and hot here. I don't prune at all. Because I need the leaf cover to protect fruits.

[FILMNET]

That called Florida weave.i use it
I have a 8ft strong wooden stick at the ends, and a simple single stick on each plant. i tie up the stem to this stick as it grows, when i get my second fruit out on the plants, usually it is outside the center so the Florinda sting tie them. Look at the shot the fruits are on 1 plants the left and right one are tie to string or a little stick.. I can walk beside the plant because no branches are left off without string. This fruits were over 1 lb each.

[tjg911]

Originally Posted by t-ham

tjg911,

What size diameters do you use for your cages? I would imagine you use different sizes for different types of plants, ind vs det, etc. Does experience tell you that, for example, a Brandywine takes "x" and a commercial Roma takes "y"?
Your answer seems to infer that your plants fill the cages comfortably and sort of hold themselves up by filling in the space. The remark about letting suckers grow is appealing, too.

i initially made 26 or 28" diameter cages. these are too wide so i cut them down to 22 or 24" diameter. some varieties will fill the cages and others won't fill them. for example, for a wispy plant like prue i put 2 into 1 cage but for most varieties i put 1 into a cage. i don't grow determinants and if i am correct they don't get large enough to require staking? anyway, i just put a cage around 1 plant and as the plant grows i move the branches over the cage wires so they are holding up the plant which takes maybe 10 seconds per plant every few days or so. this is much less time consuming than tying them up. sometimes a plant will drop into the cage if there are not enough branches to support the weight when there are a lot of tomatoes on it but i often had plants collapse from the same thing when tied to a stake.

not pinching suckers makes more sense to me than removing them. i used to pinch them because that was what you were supposed to do and it takes time, actually i cut them with a knife as in 2 or 3 days they can attain impressive size. the theory is they provide more leaves for photosynthesis and shade for the tomatoes (which protects against sun scald and makes them sweeter tho i don't know if it actually makes them sweeter) which makes sense to me. the time saved is well worth it too!

tom

[tjg911]

Originally Posted by t-ham

Filmnet,

I've heard of stripping lower leaves and usually do it to some extent. But your answer seems to bring us back to the question of suckers/no suckers. The info I got years ago and usually have kept to is to allow the shoots out of the bottom 2 axials as branches and grow as a 3 stem plant but since learning about the astounding variety of tomatos out there I figure that what works for one variety may not be the best for another.

Lets get tjg911 back in here. t, have you noticed any production variables between sucker and non-sucker plants? Or do you always leave them grow. Have you ever given plants to a friend and compared yields later?

Thanks all,

Tom

i never did a side by side comparison so i can't say. i used to remove all suckers. then 1 season i read about not removing them and never have taken them off since. i think it may delay fruit but not by much.

i will say that for the past several years i have cut dtm significantly with varieties that i grow each year and am familiar with. i attribute that to growing plants under shop lights. by the time i plant out on memorial day weekend the plants are 17-19" tall with stalks 1/2" in diameter. i frequently have flowers on them and sometimes tomatoes appear 10 days after planting them. i used to remove flowers within the 1st 2 or 3 weeks after planting out but stopped and now i get tomatoes in mid july vs mid august.

the best example is prue. prue used to be a 80-85 dtm tomato, i seldom picked one before 8/15 and typically it was 8/21 or 8/25. now i get prue on 7/10 or 7/14. typically the 1st fruits of any variety are not as good as they will be in another week. so by 7/17 or 7/21 i am getting excellent tomatoes from prue. i have noticed the same with sun gold, the 1st tomatoes are not as good as they are in another 4 or 5 days.

tom

[tjg911]

Originally Posted by b54red

I take off any leaves near the ground and almost all suckers and most forks. Then tie the stems to a trellis. It is a lot of work but the plants set and produce far more fruit over the season than when I allowed them free reign. I'm like filmnet, I'm in it for the fruit not the vines. Almost every time I find myself admiring a beautiful plant the harsh reality of my growing conditions will make it obvious within a week or so why this is not a good thing. Keeping the plants pruned helps keep most of the foliage diseases under better control and makes spraying more efficient and much easier.

I think everyone should use the method that works best for their garden climate. The method I use would probably be far less effective where the climate is much drier or where the season is really short.

i agree. alabama is different than connecticut. our summers are hot and very humid but that is july and august only. i never found air circulation to be an issue whether staking or using crw cages. i always have planted 4' on center. i always remove the bottom 8" or 12" of leaves for air circulation.

tom

[feldon30]

In Houston, I would trim off the bottom 12-18" of foliage, and then later in the season if there's getting to be a "thicket", I'll trim off some of that foliage. But no rhyme or reason or organized "pruning" to it. Some year I'll try proper pruning and see if it makes a difference for me.

[b54red]

Feldon, I don't even know what proper pruning is. I just do what seems to work for me and for the individual plant I am pruning. It is more of an art than a science the way I prune. If the plants are close together then I have to prune more and if they are further apart I allow them to develop more stems and foliage. Of course it is all a moot point when one of them gets really sick with fusarium.

[Worth1]

Please dont tie up the tomatoes let them run wild.

Run little tomatoes run be free.

Worth

[b54red]

Worth, we have leash laws for dogs here so I think the least I can do is have one for my tomatoes.